


Pride Goeth

by triedunture



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley makes sure of that, Godparents Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, M/M, Parent Death, Pride Parades, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Self-Indulgent, Shitty parents get theirs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19308496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley end up with a kid. It's mostly Crowley's fault. Happy Pride!





	Pride Goeth

June was all right, in Crowley's opinion. Not his personal favorite, of course, but there was something to be said about the burning heat and the thick, treacly humidity. It did a lot of the heavy lifting for him when it came to pushing humanity to the brink of violence. Ask anyone who's packed themselves onto a Victoria line platform in the middle of June and you'll find they're always one nasty look away from committing murder.

Best stay at street level, which was where Crowley was at the moment. He'd meant to stay out of the fray happening belowdecks but damn it all if he didn't find himself in a swirl of activity that made the crowds of summer tourists around Buckingham Palace look like a sparsely attended AA meeting.

He spotted Aziraphale in the thick press of bodies conveniently around the time his annoyance had reached a noticeable point, so he ambled up behind him. "What's all this? Has London finally decided to stampede?"

Aziraphale turned, eyes wide with surprise. "Crowley! I didn't expect to see you here."

A passing youth flung some sort of boa over Crowley's head as they passed, laughing. Crowley maintained his dignity as it flopped over one lense of his dark glasses.

"Didn't intend to be here. Got carried in by the tsunami." He plucked the multi-colored faux feather monstrosity out of his hair and considered it, squinting. "Oh, is it that time of year already?"

Time passes strangely when you're immortal. Crowley often forgot at which point the calendar would serve up Bonfire Night, for example.

Aziraphale scanned the crowds. "Yes," he said distractedly, "it is." Through divine intervention, the angel stood unpushed and unprodded in the sea of people, a single point of cream and beige contained in a riot of rainbows.

Crowley, a dark smudge in it all, sniffed. "Bit unseemly for you, showing up here. Pride's one of the seven deadlies, isn't it?"

"Well, that's up to one's interpretation," Azirapahel murmured. "Most things are, after all." His attention, however, was not on their tête-à-tête but rather the parade-goers.

Crowley, unused to not being at the center of that angelic attention, placed himself in front of Aziraphale and looped the colorful boa about his neck. "Come on, let me in on the scheme. You here for a bit of miracle-working or what?"

Those worried eyes finally latched onto Crowley's face with an accompanying sigh. "I'm afraid not. I was given a, erm, dressing-down some years ago on the subject. Apparently I'm not to make such—" He waved his hands jazzily in the air. "Flamboyant scenes any longer."

Crowley's grin stretched his lips into a blade. "Why, angel, are you telling me the bosses upstairs chewed you out for jumping on a parade float?"

"No, don't be silly." Aziraphale's face crumpled in concern and he looked back over the crowds. "They just pointed out, quite rightly, that I can't...save them all."

An uncomfortable click shifted somewhere in Crowley's middle. He drew back just a tad. "And when you say 'save,' you mean…?"

Aziraphale looked back with a snap of his head. "Oh! No, not— I rather like this lot, you know. They're just as God made them. Wouldn't change a thing." His eyes took on that hooded cloud of worry once more. "It's the other humans who don't share that view that are the trouble."

"Hmm." Now it was Crowley's turn to scan the parade. He didn't sense any truly deep malice, and malice was the one thing he could pick out of a lineup without fail. "So you came here though you had express orders not to interfere. You little rebel."

"I am not rebelling," Aziraphale said. "My orders are to not use any miracles. Fine. But if something were to happen—" He fidgeted with the signet ring on his pinkie. "Well, there are other ways to help, is what I mean."

Crowley's lips parted as he grasped Aziraphale's meaning. Sweet, hopeless Aziraphale, ready to protect his beloved little humans even if it meant wading into the thick of things and getting his hands dirty. "Their own guardian angel," Crowley breathed.

"I know it's a foolish exercise—" Aziraphale started.

"Nah." Crowley drew the word out over his tongue. He so enjoyed sticking it to those turds up in the fluffy clouds. "Tell you what: _I_ didn't make any promises. Someone steps out of line?" He nodded his coppery head at a passing march of dancers. "I'll sic a load of spiders on them."

Aziraphale's eyes lit up. "Would you?"

"'Course."

That soft light flooded into Aziraphale's face. He looked, worryingly, like he might go in for a hug. "Oh, Crowley."

"Well, don't make a big deal out of it." Crowley held up his hands in defense. "It's not as if I'm doing _good_ here. I'm letting the cops and the banks stick around, after all."

"Still." The smile was smothered quite unsuccessfully. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Seriously, I could get a lot of grief from downstairs."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Aziraphale's gaze went over Crowley's shoulder and the grin fell from his lips. The smallest sigh escaped him as he stared.

Crowley turned to find a little kid sitting on the base of a lamppost, watching the parade with a strange look: half-forlorn, half-rapture.

"Problem?" Crowley asked Aziraphale. He didn't sense any welling malice in the kid, but maybe he'd missed a spot.

Aziraphale shook his head. "It's a pity," he murmured, "the homes some of these children must return to when this is over."

A frown overtook Crowley's lips and he regarded the kid more closely. "Thought you were only good at sniffing out love."

"I am," Aziraphale said, "but I can sense its lack as well." He turned away with the kind of regretful slowness that Crowley recognized from their days knee-deep in the Plague. "Come on. We might have a better view from over there."

Right, Crowley thought, sparing the poor bugger one last glance. Can't save them all. Heaven was right about that, at least.

But...what about just one?

"Crowley?"

The demon spun around, seeing Aziraphale looking back at him through the crowd, a question furrowing his brow.

Crowley waved him off. "Best if we split up! Cover, erm, more ground," he called. "Meet back at yours after?"

Aziraphale looked a little disappointed, but nodded. "All right."

It was easy to get lost in the crush, so Crowley did.

The sun had set by the time the bell rang above the door at A.Z. Fell & Co. Aziraphale, wearing his spectacles not because he needed them but because he thought they looked rather natty, looked up from the book he was perusing.

"Oh, Crowley, thank goodness," he said when he saw the familiar shape saunter into the shop. He unperched his spectacles from the tip of his nose and busied himself with putting away the book. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to— Erm, hullo, who's this?"

A smaller shape stepped out from Crowley's shadow. Crowley made a series of noises that indicated he was thinking about whether to tell the truth or a lie or a combination of the two, and finally they coalesced into words. "So I may've done something."

The child, the same tousled kid Aziraphale had spotted in the crowd, gave a little wave.

"Oh, for goodness sake," Aziraphale breathed, and dragged Crowley further into the room with a rather strong grip to his coat sleeve. Crowley gave the kid a reassuring grin as he went with the angel. "Crowley," he whispered once they had a tiny bit more privacy, "why did you bring him here?"

"Best I could do on short notice. Can't very well leave twelve-year-olds to fend for themselves, can you?"

Aziraphale's eyes grew large. "And his parents?"

"Well…." A long series of L's rolled out of Crowley's mouth. He avoided Aziraphale's panicked stare.

"Crowley, where are they?" he asked, danger seeping into his voice.

The demon tipped his dark glasses down so his yellow eyes could peep over the top. "Right where they belong," he said just as dangerously. "There's an entire circle of Hell set aside just for people like them."

"You didn't—!" Aziraphale looked over at the child, who seemed preoccupied with a stack of Dickens, then dropped his voice back to a whisper. " _Kill_ them?"

"Of course not; I don't do murder, angel," Crowley said. He flicked a bit of lint from his shirt cuff. "Though someone might have hissed in their ear that today was a fine day not to wear their seat belts. The nanny state, you know. Something must be done about it."

Aziraphale grabbed fistfuls of his hair in his hands and groaned. "You can't just— You never think these things through! Where will the boy go now, Crowley? Did you consider that?"

"Boy?"

Both angel and demon paused in their argument to turn to the little kid, who was now apparently bored with Dickens and was standing much too close, blinking up at them with big, brown eyes.

"You know I'm a boy?" the child asked Aziraphale, chin wobbling.

A gentle smile came over Aziraphale's face. "Of course. It's fairly obvious to me."

"It isn't to most people."

"Most people don't see too well," Aziraphale said. "What's your name, lad?"

The boy chewed on his lip. "I quite like Ethan for a name."

"Then Ethan it shall be," Aziraphale said. "It's a good name, I think. I knew an Ethan back in— Ah, a long time ago now. He was a bit of a writer."

"I like writing," said Ethan, "but I'm better at drawing. Do you have any biscuits?"

"I certainly do," Aziraphale said, and guided the boy toward the pantry in the back of the shop. Instead of following, he turned to Crowley and hissed, "We are _not_ keeping him."

"You sure?" Crowley could barely contain his feral grin. "Might be nice, raising a kid with you. He already takes after your love of foodstuffs." He watched Aziraphale turn a lovely shade of pink before popping his lips. "Just kidding, angel. I know it's out of the question." For one thing, their jobs. For another, the watchful eye of both Sides. For a third— Well, there were a lot of reasons why it wouldn't work at the moment and they both knew it.

Aziraphale pinned Crowley with a look. "Then what, pray tell, are we to do with him?"

Crowley clicked his tongue. "There's an aunt. In Bristol. Has a lovely wife. Lives in a two-bedroom flat, steady job. Sweet on the boy. Knows he's a he. Couldn't care less." He waggled his head back and forth. "I do sometimes think things through," he said lightly.

"Oh." Aziraphale practically slumped in relief. "So he'll—?"

"He'll be just fine." Crowley brushed the backs of his fingers over Aziraphale's hand, and Aziraphale in turn grasped them. A tight squeeze, then release. "Bit late for a drive to Bristol, though. Thought he could sleep here tonight, take him in the morning."

Concern stole across Aziraphale's face. "There will be questions, of course. Paperwork. Humans are so keen on it."

"Who do you think invented the bureaucracy of child services?" Crowley pretended to be affronted. "Snap of my fingers and it's all sorted."

Ethan's little voice called from the pantry: "There's only five Jaffa cakes left. Can I have them?"

"Is that too many?" Aziraphale murmured to himself. Then, half-shrugging, he called back, "Help yourself!" He turned back to Crowley, eyes shining. "You really are a bit of wonderful, my dear."

Like a magician, Crowley produced a multi-colored boa from his coat pocket and looped it around Aziraphale's neck. The angel, though distressed by the clashing colors, allowed it with a smile.

"Don't let word get around," Crowley said, pulling him closer.

It was not the first kiss they'd ever shared, but by Crowley's calculation, it was one of the best.

When it was over, Aziraphale sighed and laid his cheek against Crowley's chest. They stayed there, wrapped up in each other's arms and the silly boa, and listened to Ethan giving himself a stomach ache in the pantry.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me : )  
> Just : )))  
> Working thru my issues in a healthy manner : ))))  
> Anyway fuck shitty parents : ) who don't deserve their amazing trans kids : ) If you have one : ) I'm your parent now sorry : ) them's the rules 
> 
> Comments would be : ))))))))) very nice!


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